Golf: Lajoie tourney a Worcester Country Club tradition

Sunday

Jul 28, 2013 at 6:00 AM

Bill Doyle Golf

Each year, former Worcester Country Club head pro Ray Lajoie and his wife Coco are even more amazed than the year before that the Lori Lajoie Charity Golf Tournament, which is named after their late daughter, is still going strong.

The 38th annual edition of the event will be held at Worcester Country Club with a double shotgun on Thursday, Aug. 15. Nearly 240 golfers are expected to tee off with the goal of raising about $225,000 for the Seven Hills Foundation. Over the years, the tournament has raised more than $5 million for the foundation, which supports the physically and mentally disadvantaged.

“When I retired in ’96,” Lajoie said, “I expected the club to disband the tournament.”

That thought never entered the minds of a group of dedicated WCC members, who were determined to continue the tournament named after the Lajoies’ daughter, who was developmentally disabled and died of ovarian cancer in 2000.

“Now, it’s part of the Worcester Country Club legacy,” said WCC member Mark Fuller.

For at least 30 years, Fuller and his wife, Jan, have not only played in the tournament, but served on its committee. At the Lajoie banquet, Fuller’s father, Russell, will be honored with a video tribute 10 years after his death for his contributions to the tournament. Russell and his wife. Joyce, who turns 86 on Aug. 7, played in the first Lajoie tournament and many others. While he was WCC president, Russell Fuller helped the tournament thrive and began the tradition of the Fuller Foundation contributing $25,000 each year to the tournament.

For their support, the Seven Hills Foundation building on Hope Avenue was named after Russell and Joyce Fuller.

“I’m certainly following in the footsteps of my father,” said Mark Fuller, a member of the Seven Hills board, “and I have an affinity for supporting Ray and Coco because as long as I’ve been a member there, they’ve been there in one form or another.”

Fuller’s daughter, Kelsa Zereski, is following in his footsteps by serving on the tournament committee.

Fullers have belonged to WCC since the beginning. Fuller’s great-great uncle, George Fuller, who founded the Fuller Foundation, served as president of WCC and headed the buildings and grounds committee when Donald Ross designed the course in 1914.

The Fullers aren’t the only WCC members who support the tournament. Diane and Roy Brazelton have also been longtime committee members and the membership accounts for roughly 80 percent of the sponsorship revenue. Everyone who plays in the tournament is a member, a guest of a member or one of the golf pros rounded up by Lajoie. Pleasant Valley CC head pro Paul Parajeckas, for instance, has played every year. The tournament is not open to the general public.

Incredibly, WCC members pay to play their own golf course the day of the Lajoie Tournament. It costs $250 for members and $350 for nonmembers. A foursome, including sponsorship of a green or a hole, costs $2,500. Some members who don’t play make donations.

“They want to see,” Fuller said, “that the Worcester Country Club membership does something in the community other than just play golf and have dinner. It’s something that Worcester Country Club and its members can claim as its own.”

“I think the members of the country club,” Lajoie said, “have been great to continue this thing. They’re to be really commended.”

To ensure the continuation of the tournament, the club bylaws state that the immediate past club president and current women’s golf chairman, currently Bob Maher and Liz Rhodes, serve as co-chairmen of tournament committee.

Fuller, 64, volunteers for a lot of organizations, but the Lajoie clearly holds a special place in his heart.

“I believe this deserves to continue,” Fuller said. “So certainly I want to see it perpetuated.”

Lajoie is 79 and walks with a cane because of peripheral neuropathy, a deadening of the nerve endings, in his legs. He had to stop playing golf a few years ago, but his daughter’s tournament gives him a chance to return to WCC. Ray and Coco will sell raffle tickets at the tournament.

“This golf tournament is everything to him,” Coco said.

Quite a few WCC members feel the same way.

The Women’s Golf Association of Massachusetts Amateur Championship and Presidents’ Cup will be held Monday through Thursday at Framingham CC.

That’s as close to Central Mass. as the tournament will have been since Lunenburg’s Laura Torrisi prevailed at Oak Hill CC in Fitchburg in 1999 for the first of her two championships.

Of the 108 WGAM Amateur championships held since 1900, only 10 have been contested outside of Eastern Mass. Three Central Mass. clubs, Oak Hill (1994 and 1999), Mount Pleasant CC in Boylston (1993) and Worcester CC (1923, 1940, 1958 and 1972) have hosted the event for total of seven times. Three Western Mass. clubs, Wyantenuck in Great Barrington (2002), the Orchards in South Hadley (1995) and Longmeadow CC (1989), have hosted it once each. So the WGAM Amateur will be held in Eastern Mass. for the 11th consecutive year.

“I would say much of it has to do,” said Cindy Zattich, who is in her second year as WGAM president, “with the willingness of people to travel to participate in a tournament that’s four days long. So we have not had as many events in the central and western part of the state because we haven’t had as many women from there who participate.”

Zattich, who lives on the fringe of Central Mass. in Maynard and plays out of Butter Brook GC in Westford, said she has tried to reach out to all parts of the state during her term as president.

“I’ve been working very hard at trying to expand our horizons,” Zattich said, “because I feel that the WGAM doesn’t just represent a certain part of the state. We represent the entire state.”

Zattich said the WGAM has 1,600 individual members and 175-180 member clubs. Most live the eastern part of the state.

Zattich has been a WGAM board member for six years and played in WGAM events for more than 20. Living in Maynard, she said she figured out that she lives about the same distance from Stockbridge as Brewster, and she’s trying to convince Eastern Mass. golfers that Central and Western Mass. have fine courses worth playing.

Zattich would also like to see more golfers from outside Eastern Mass. play in events or volunteer to work at them.

The Mass. Golf Association also rarely holds its state amateur championship in Central Mass. Only nine of the 105 men’s Massachusetts Amateur championships have been held in Central Mass. Worcester CC hosted it in 1921, 1933, 1948, 1964, 1989, 2000 and 2006, Pleasant Valley CC hosted it in 1974 and Oak Hill hosted it in 1961.

The Mass. Amateur actually has been held in Western Mass. more often than in Central Mass., 13 times, in fact — five at Longmeadow (including the 2013 event earlier this month), four at Taconic in Williamstown, twice at the CC of Pittsfield and once each at the Orchards and Wyantenuck.

“The Amateur has historically been at a smaller group of clubs,” MGA executive director Joe Sprague said last week, “and I think you’ll see going forward there will be other clubs starting to host the Amateur.”

Sprague may see the need for the Amateur to be spread around more, but he will step down this week after serving six years as MGA executive director to become USGA director of regional affairs for the Northeast. It’s no sure thing that his replacement, who has not been named yet, will agree.

According to MGA director of communications Becky Blaeser, the MGA has tried to secure more rules officials and course rating officials in Central Mass. in recent years because having more regional contacts helps the MGA reach the clubs’ decision-makers. In an email, Blaeser said Oak Hill CC member Tom Bagley helped the MGA secure his club to host of the 2011 Massachusetts Open Championship and the 2015 Massachusetts Amateur Championship.

The WGAM and MGA have held other events outside of Eastern Mass, but none that lasts as long as its amateur championship, which takes more days away from members. The WGAM Amateur lasts four days, and the Mass. Amateur lasts five, so they’re nearly always held at private courses because they don’t rely on greens fees. The WGAM and MGA do not pay clubs to use their courses.

In 2011, Kate Nelson of Cyprian Keyes became the first Central Mass. golfer to win the WGAM Amateur in a decade and only the fifth since the tournament made its debut in 1900. Torrisi won in 1999 and 2001, Worcester resident Mary Gale, playing then out of Tatnuck CC, prevailed in 1996, Florence McClusky of Worcester CC won in 1948, 1953, 1962, 1965 and 1966, and Deborah Verry of Tatnuck CC won in 1937 and 1940.

The only Western Mass. golfer to win the WGAM Amateur was Patricia O’Brien of the CC of Pittsfield, who prevailed in 1969 and 1971.

The top 32 players in medal play at Framingham CC on Monday will compete in the Amateur Championship, and the next 32 will compete for the Presidents’ Cup.

Claire Sheldon of The Country Club in Brookline won last year at Brae Burn CC in Newton.

Contact Bill Doyle at wdoyle@telegram.com. Follow him on Twitter @BillDoyle15.

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